What a Great Weekend: New Knitting Friends

I had a terrific time at the DKC Winter Workshops this past weekend. I met some great new knitters and friends - and caught up with some old friends, too.

There's Debbie, who apparently used to crochet in a past life. I teach a class called Crochet For Knitters. It's about teaching knitters how a crochet hook can make their lives better - for picking up stitches, for quick seams, for decorative edgings, for lie-flat edgings, for lengthening sleeves that were inadvertently knitted too short (yes, I'm looking at you, M.). I don't fuss about style, and we don't worry about reading the patterns, it's sort of the crafter's equivalent of a conversational Italian course - just enough to be able to find your way around, but not so much that you're worrying about correct verb forms. Knitters are often clumsy at first with a crochet hook - god knows I was - but Debbie was some sort of savant. Her friends and I just watched her swoop the hook ever-so-elegantly, like she'd done it before.

I met a real live natural Norwegian Purler - that is, someone who was taught that way and didn't know there was any other way. Her name is Sue, and she learnt to knit in Denmark. I think I startled her when I realized how she was knitting and rushed over to watch. I had to reassure her that what she was doing was actually very cool. She said that she had noticed that no-one else did it the same way in North America. I told her that she should be proud of her method, and should offer to teach it to anyone who remarks upon her knitting. So - look out for a lovely lady called Sue who purls Norwegian style - she may well teach you!

And there's Liz who took my "Lace 102" class so she could tackle a Shetland lace pattern from Heirloom Knitting. Specifically, a multi-pattern, multi-bordered cob-web weight Shetland lace shawl that can be worked as either a triangle or square. The triangle requires 6 x 25gm of 1 ply lace weight. 25gm of this yarn has 350m of yarn. I got out my calculator (since being good at math is not nearly the same thing as being good at arithmetic), and worked it out: that's 2100m of yarn. Cobweight weight yarn. FOR THE HALF SIZE VERSION.

The full size version takes twice that.

Liz has the right attitude - she's set herself a 5 year goal. I plan to take her out for a drink when it's done.